Esteban Ocon finished eleventh in Imola but was later demoted to fourteenth due to a pit-lane penalty
Esteban Ocon and his Alpine F1 team had a disappointing outing at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola. Ocon crossed the finish line in the 11th place but was demoted to 14th due to a five-second penalty for an unsafe pit-lane release earlier in the race. Alpine failed to register a single point at the Grand Prix with the other driver Fernando Alonso registering a DNF.
Speaking on the penalty incident, Ocon said, “It was a frustrating race for us in the end where we’ve not scored any points. For me, it’s been a tricky one since the beginning and the Qualifying result compromised the rest of my weekend so if you think about it, where we ended up today before the penalty is not too bad. We lacked a bit of race pace and in the end, we were not quick enough to get into the points even without the five-second penalty“.
The French driver further added that he is confident about coming back strong in Miami. “It’s a really tight pit-lane but we’ll be looking at exactly what happened in the debrief tonight to see if it could’ve been avoided. We’ll learn and move on from this one, and I’m already looking forward to Miami”, he said.
Where do things stand after the Imola Grand Prix?
Despite the poor showing in Imola, Ferrari continues to stay on top of both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships. Charles Leclerc leads the drivers with 86 points while a second race win of the season means Max Verstappen has reduced the gap and moved into second place with 59 points followed by his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in third place with 54 points.
In the constructors’ championship, Ferrari’s comfortable lead at the top has been reduced drastically by Red Bull. Ferrari leads the table with 124 points with Red Bull just behind them on 113. There is a fair amount of gap between the top 2 teams and the rest of the grid with Mercedes occupying third place having earned 77 points.
